Suggestions to Buff/Change WHM

[Yuyuka3]

Thanks, lol.

I am a game design student, so this is the kinda stuff I talk about all day with my classmates.

SE should hire you, maybe then they would finally get healer balancing at least somewhat right.

[ty_taurus]

SE should hire you, maybe then they would finally get healer balancing at least somewhat right.

I wish. I'd love to work on FFXIV. That's a fantasy job of mine working on Class design and Class balance. If I were on the team, I would've spent every possible hour making sure a new Tank and Healer would've been introduced as well. I have a Dancer concept that needs an update now that so much about the new combat system has been revealed, and I probably would've added Puppetmaster or Blue Mage as a Tank seeing as they're the most popularly requested new Tanks.

Sadly, I don't think any US branches of SE have anything to do with FFXIV other than localization. I also don't know Japanese, so that would probably be a challenge working there even if I did get hired.

[SaitoHikari]

Thanks, lol.

I am a game design student, so this is the kinda stuff I talk about all day with my classmates.

Oh, another design student, though in my case it'd really be just in name only.

If I may ask, I'm curious as to what you think of my own suggestions, as I personally believe the lily mechanic isn't very future-proof, though I'd be in full support of your suggestions to salvage it. Instead, I came up with an entirely new system revolving around WHM's elemental affinities (meant to stand in opposition to BLM lore-wise).

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- Solid Earth: Passive. Casting Stone spells 3 times builds Earth Blessing, which can be stacked up to 3. Earth Blessing stacks are consumed to either increase the duration of or lower the cooldown of special Earth-aspected abilities.
- Jagged Shield: Summons a shield of spires on the targeted party member or pet. The shield nullifies damage equal to 50% of the target's maximum HP at the time of casting for up to 15 seconds. When the shield is broken or the duration expires, damage equal to the shield's HP is inflicted to all enemies in a 10-yalm radius of the target (hey, a reason for Bards to use Troubadour in Mage's Ballad mode, and for Warriors to use Thrill of Battle offensively!). 90 second cooldown, but can be reduced to 80/70/55 seconds. (This and Solid Earth are learned at Lv. 42.)
- Granite Wall: Casts a shield on a single party member that becomes near impenetrable when they are about to suffer a fatal hit, preventing their HP from dropping below 1 for 5 seconds once triggered (duration can be increased to 7/9/12 seconds). 300 second cooldown with 15 second buff duration before triggering. (Yes, I did just give a targeted Holmgang to White Mages.)

- Calm Water: Passive. Casting Cure/Medica-type spells 3 times generates Water Blessing, which can be stacked up to 5. Medica II critically healing has a 10% chance to generate a stack, and a critical Holy also has a 20% chance to generate a stack too.
- Water Blessing stacks have three effects. The first is that they're obviously used to cast new abilities. The second is that holding a full stack of 5 reduces MP costs of Cure/Medica/Holy spells by 10%. The third is that each stack reduces emnity generation by 5%, for a total of 25%. (The last effect exists because I foresee the removal of Cleric Stance resulting in Assize usage leading to MASSIVE emnity generation, especially with the cooldown reduction.) Learned at Lv. 34 to replace Stoneskin's former position.
- Cure/Medica spells are currently considered to be wind-aspected due to the green aura when casting. This should be changed to blue/water-aspected (especially since Esuna is now a cross-role skill, and Esuna is the only water-aspected GCD that WHMs currently have).
- Holy also gets changed to become water-aspected. (I know this doesn't really matter, but lore.)
- Reflect: Requires and consumes 3 stacks of Water Blessing. Generates a barrier around all surrounding party members that will mitigate and then reflect 10% of magic damage taken back at the source. It will also reflect physical debuffs associated with said magic attack (things like stun/poison/lightning, obviously not vulnerability up). This will only reflect one magic attack before expiring. 15 second duration, 90 second cooldown.
- Divine Benison: Same effect, but uses 1/3/5 Water Blessing stacks for cooldown reduction rather than the Confession/Lily stuff.

- Raging Wind: Passive. Each time Aero-type spells inflict critical damage or Regen critically heals, a Wind Blessing is generated, stacking up to 15 times. Once the 15th Blessing is granted, they are automatically consumed to grant Rage of the Wind for 20 seconds, which increases critical hit chance by 10% and additionally reduces Assize's cooldown by 5 seconds once triggered. It also allows a new spell to be used.
- Assize gets changed to be wind-aspected. (I know this doesn't really matter, but lore.)
- Thin Air: Same effect as before, but cooldown can be decreased to 100 seconds if used while Rage of the Wind is up (and thus consuming the buff), 120 seconds otherwise.
- Tornado: Can only be cast while under Rage of the Wind status. Inflicts 50 potency damage to the target and all enemies surrounding them, along with inflicting Aero II's debuff. Casting immediately cancels Rage of the Wind status, allowing Wind Blessing stacks to be built up again. 30 second cooldown.

- Font of Creation: The White Mage borrows the power of the Wind, Water, and Earth elementals to summon a field of destruction and succor both. Enemies inside the field take 30 potency damage over time from the searing winds within, and the water also drops their magic resistance by 5%. The power of the earth also shields party members inside the field, reducing damage taken by 10%. Requires at least 1 stack of Wind, Water, and Earth Blessing, and using the skill will consume all stacks, though effects do not change depending on how many stacks are consumed. 15 second duration, 180 second cooldown. (Before anyone asks, the activation requirement for this ability means that Divine Benison can't be used at the same time.)

[ty_taurus]

Oh, another design student, though in my case it'd really be just in name only.

If I may ask, I'm curious as to what you think of my own suggestions, as I personally believe the lily mechanic isn't very future-proof, though I'd be in full support of your suggestions to salvage it. Instead, I came up with an entirely new system revolving around WHM's elemental affinities (meant to stand in opposition to BLM lore-wise).

I imagine you've designed this concept more as a what-if factor and less of a solution to the current WHM; however, I want to take a moment to talk about the difference between ideas that are made to improve WHM vs ideas that are designed for the fun of the fantasy. This is primarily for anyone that might not think about the situation in this way. A lot of time and resources went into designing the lilies, and it would require just as much time and resources, if not more, to create a whole new concept. Altering the lilies in some way to make them stronger takes considerably less time and resources.

I want to remind everyone here not to focus too much on drastically new ideas because we can fall into a state of wanting something out of the WHM that we simply will not get. This doesn't mean it's bad to fantasize about ideas like this, but I just don't want us here to come to despise WHM because it won't turn into drastic and wild ideas that we've come up with here on the forums. That being said, let's get onto the analysis:

Earth
I actually had an idea for a similar concept way back before we knew anything about Stormblood; essentially casting Stone spells would build stacks that could be consumed to let the WHM cast Stoneskin II in combat instantly. I mentioned this a little earlier on this page, but I've come to realize that % HP based shields and heals aren't really healthy for balance in FFXIV because it favors Warriors over other tanks.

Moving onto your actions... I like the name "Granite Wall," but Tanks have an immunity system in place already. I don't think this means there's no room for an immunity, but creating a shield that's unbiased to what job you give it to would be a nice and healthy idea. I would combine elements of your Granite Wall and Jagged Shield into one action that replaces Divine Benison: A barrier that has a detonate effect.

I also want to flip your detonate on its head. As it stands, meta players probably wouldn't ever place it on the main tank. Why? Because taking damage is lowering the damage the shield will do upon detonation, ultimately discouraging using it defensively. I will come back to this later with Font of Creation, but I say that the barrier should actually apply Earth Blessing to the player you placed Granite Wall on. More on that use later. Maybe critical hits with Stone spells will cut out 5 seconds from Granite Wall's cooldown.

As for the barrier itself, let's say in shields for an amount based on the caster's VIT, to create an unbiased barrier as I mentioned earlier. Perhaps the calculation for how much VIT to calculate goes up slightly for each player that has Earth Blessing? This could be interesting, especially if you can only apply one blessing per player. More on that as I talk about the other elements.

Water
But with your Calm Water idea in mind, I think it's really a lot to take in. There are so many nooks and crannies of the ability that it seems difficult to remember. You have to cast Cure/CureII, or Medica 3 times in a row to get 1 stack, but Medica II has a tiny chance to create a stack, but only when critical hitting, but Holy just has a 20% flat chance per cast (which isn't a water spell anyway.) It's mechanically complicated and I really don't see why it would need to be. And then the actual buff has a number of different effects per stack which is asking a lot of the player, especially when you combine it all with the other passives from Earth and Wind.

Like I said before, simplicity is key. Actions that have simple uses but can work in many different ways are the ones that are the most engaging to play. If you're going to get a Water Blessing somehow, it should be simple to grasp, and not too challenging to manage alongside Earth and Wind. Also, I'm fairly annoyed with how the water element is basically non-existent on WHM's skill set. I'd like to encourage something to replace the joke of an action, Fluid Aura, with something that could be used.

Let's talk about your Vital Aura. The problem with a crit shield is that it's likely something that would only be used on tanks, but what if it did something different. Let's say it applies a heavy HoT for a short period of time, similar to Wheel of Fortune on AST. Maybe it can also have a much lower cooldown so it can be applied somewhat frequently. When the HoT ends, the target also receives Water Blessing. By adding an offensive water spell, like Flood, perhaps it applies a debuff to the target of flood that causes them to deal 20% less damage to players with Water Blessing? I think that's overall a lot simpler, and works with some of the themes you were going for in your water design.

Wind
First, I'd need to do the math on how frequently Aero DoTs and Regens critical hit to get a better understanding of how quickly you want to be hitting 15 stacks. That being said, I feel like the reward of 5 seconds off Assize and critical hit chance feel a little bland of a buff to be building for. I also feel like it might be nice to be rewarded for keeping DoTs maintained. Perhaps you get a stacks of Raging Wind per tick of Aero and Aero III (Not really sure if Regen needs to be a part of this.) At max stacks, that's when Tornado can be active, and the stacks drop off if no DoTs have ticked for a short period of time. The idea here is that skilled play should reward players with the stacks to cast Tornado.

As for Tornado, I get that you're trying to replace the lost 3rd DoT, but I don't feel like that's a satisfying enough reward to be building stacks in either iteration. A lot of people would probably feel like it was frustrating that they had to build up this stack just to get something that could originally be cast for no effort. That being said, I think Tornado could do a lot of cool things. I'm thinking along the lines of Iron Jaws on Bard, where Tornado can reset the timers for Aero II and Aero III, but imagine if it also would detonate any current stacks on the target, doing all the remaining potency damage at once before resetting the DoTs. I feel like that could be really rewarding if it required maintaining Aero DoTs throughout a fight.

As for Wind Blessing, I imagine we could make some changes to Thin Air to make it apply Blessings on allies. I'm thinking of dramatically reducing the duration of Thin Air while also reducing the cooldown, and having it apply to yourself and your target, similarly to Synastry. You and our ally have all MP and TP costs reduced to 0 for 5 seconds, and that ally gets a Wind Blessing. It would need some numbers testing, but I think that could be a unique form of utility. These stacks of Wind Blessing will passively build stacks of Raging Wind on you, getting faster the more players have the buff. This makes Tornado easier to achieve if you pass Thin Air to multiple allies.

Font of Creation
Alright, so I talked about these blessings you created for each element, and this is essentially how they come together. I like your idea of utilizing your elements in Font of Creation, but I think we could actually merge this with Plenary Indulgence and effectively replace the Confession stacks and do different things. First, you can only have 1 Blessing per player (Earth, Wind, or Water. Applying one will overwrite any current Blessing on that player.) Plenary Indulgence could have a flat potency of 500, consume Earth Blessing, Wind Blessing, or Water Blessing on any players that have them and doing something differently. Earth Blessing applies a shield equal to the healing provided and lasts a short time (say 15s or so.) Wind Blessing grants a 20% Attack Speed buff (Again for 15s.) Water Blessing applies a hefty HoT (100 potency for 15s, aka, 5 ticks =500 additional potency.)

This would be extremely powerful, but would take a lot of time to built it up for the entire team. If nothing else, it would still at least provide a raid-wide heal for 500 potency. Seeing as us ASTs will get Earthly star which will give a 675 potency if activated immediately, and 900 if activated after 10 seconds, I feel like this change to Plenary Indulgence is completely justified.

Ultimately, a lot of this would need time and testing to feel satisfying, and for everything to have the right numbers. You have a lot of ambitious ideas overall. I totally get where that comes from, as I do that a lot too. I think this skill set could've been a great starting place for WHM to go through, but would've needed plenty of refinement. Even the suggestions I made I think need a lot of fine tuning as well.

[Valmaxian]

Wow just look at this. This sounds incredibly fun to play, and not even too strong or broken. It promotes different ways of healing, it promotes DPSing, it gives us synergy and utility. SE did you even try?...

And the suggestions are beautifully synergistic with what SE already has in pace for 4.0. Very nice indeed!

[Atlantasia]

Here are my ideas...

Flood (Replaces Fluid Aura)
Cast time: Instant
Recast time: 60s
Single-target damage (Potency: 400)
Effect: for 15 seconds, any ally that attacks this target with actions that cause damage has a 15% chance of gaining a Confession stack for each attack.
Flood is also affected by Secret of the Lilies, and Secret of the Lilies II

Secret of the Lilies - Chance to gain a lily
Single Target healing: 30%
Single Target damage: 15%
Multi-Target healing: 3% Per ally healed
Multi-Target damage: 3% per enemy hit
DoT and HoT ticks do not count.

New effect:
Each lily adds 5% attack speed boost while in bloom.

Regen and Medica II no longer consume Lilies

I would not switch to AST as my new main in 4.0 if this was implemented on WHM. This would make WHM worth playing in raids for me.

[AlphaSonic]

Here are my ideas...

Flood (Replaces Fluid Aura)
Cast time: Instant
Recast time: 60s
Single-target damage (Potency: 400)
Effect: for 15 seconds, any ally that attacks this target with actions that cause damage has a 15% chance of gaining a Confession stack for each attack.
Flood is also affected by Secret of the Lilies, and Secret of the Lilies II

Secret of the Lilies - Chance to gain a lily
Single Target healing: 30%
Single Target damage: 15%
Multi-Target healing: 3% Per ally healed
Multi-Target damage: 3% per enemy hit
DoT and HoT ticks do not count.

New effect:
Each lily adds 5% attack speed boost while in bloom.

Regen and Medica II no longer consume Lilies

Amazing. The class would feel better.

I would like to add to your suggestion that I think they should remove the lily effect that reduces the cooldown of abilities and instead when you have 3 lillies you should be able to unlock some new powerful abilities that would be able to spend those lillies on.

I don't know I'm not a game designer but for example:

Prayer: 200 Potency AoE heal that grants 1 stack of confession to everyone hit. Empties all your lillies.

Bubble: Increases max HP of all party member by 33% for X seconds.(Long Cooldown)

Quake: X Potency. Increases damage of your Stone spells X Seconds (Long Cooldown)

Cyclon: X Potency Dot. Increases your Spell Speed by 30%. X Seconds(Long Cooldown)

At least they would be able to keep their "identity" as healer that only heals and doesn't support but at least deals a ton of damage.

[ty_taurus]

Amazing. The class would feel better.

I would like to add to your suggestion that I think they should remove the lily effect that reduces the cooldown of abilities and instead when you have 3 lillies you should be able to unlock some new powerful abilities that would be able to spend those lillies on.

I don't know I'm not a game designer but for example:

Prayer: 200 Potency AoE heal that grants 1 stack of confession to everyone hit. Empties all your lillies.

Bubble: Increases max HP of all party member by 33% for X seconds.(Long Cooldown)

Quake: X Potency. Increases damage of your Stone spells X Seconds (Long Cooldown)

Cyclon: X Potency Dot. Increases your Spell Speed by 30%. X Seconds(Long Cooldown)

At least they would be able to keep their "identity" as healer that only heals and doesn't support but at least deals a ton of damage.

Prayer to apply an AoE stack of Confession is nice.

Bubble runs into an issue. % HP shields and HP increases are really unbalanced because A, as the game goes on, our HP gets higher and higher, meaning the boost gets exponentially stronger. This was what led to Stoneskin and Stoneskin II getting removed. And B, it's also very bias toward Warriors who generally have even more HP than the other tanks.

Quake trigger should probably have more utility to it than just more damage.

Cyclone's 30% Attack Speed would be pretty intense alone with PoM and, since you're adding on top of my effect of 5% Attack Speed per lily, you could Potentially have a combined 65% Attack Speed boost which would be extreme. That's not even including an Arrow card from AST which could bump that up to 80% if the Arrow was Enhanced.

Ultimately, this idea of having certain abilities accessible through max lilies can run into issues. if there are too many choice, you start to see a clear few actions that are better than the others, and you end up with some actions getting always used and others getting always ignored. Honestly, I like design concept of the lilies, but I think they were pretty sloppy in execution. We'll have to see how it turns out.

[chesnaught]

Here are my ideas...

Flood (Replaces Fluid Aura)
Cast time: Instant
Recast time: 60s
Single-target damage (Potency: 400)
Effect: for 15 seconds, any ally that attacks this target with actions that cause damage has a 15% chance of gaining a Confession stack for each attack.
Flood is also affected by Secret of the Lilies, and Secret of the Lilies II

Secret of the Lilies - Chance to gain a lily
Single Target healing: 30%
Single Target damage: 15%
Multi-Target healing: 3% Per ally healed
Multi-Target damage: 3% per enemy hit
DoT and HoT ticks do not count.

New effect:
Each lily adds 5% attack speed boost while in bloom.

Regen and Medica II no longer consume Lilies

I would be excited for 4.0 WHM if it were like this. This at least sounds fun even if it maybe still would not compete with the Balance card's non nerfed existence.

[ty_taurus]

I would be excited for 4.0 WHM if it were like this. This at least sounds fun even if it maybe still would not compete with the Balance card's non nerfed existence.

I made a post about how I'd do the AST cards as well. It would be so much nicer if it felt like each card had a use, and that use wasn't making Balance stronger.